Barn project

Ever since we bought the farm property we have been working on fixing the barn. Last summer we started working on shoring up the foundation on the south wall of the barn. After a year of jacking up the barn and pouring a new concrete foundation we reached a milestone in the project and were able to finally pour a new concrete floor on the south bay of the barn.


The south bay of the barn is 13 feet by 45 feet and required almost 12 cubic yards of concrete to bring it close to level with the old concrete in the middle bay of the barn. The new concrete is almost a foot thick in one area to correct a sag in the old floor caused by movement of the old foundation.

Because of the size of this concrete pour (12 cubic yards) we subcontracted this work to Jim Histand. Jim and his crew made the hard work of pouring the new floor look easy. This concrete pour was exactly one year from the day we poured a new footer for a barn support.

Fireworks

The Saturday night fireworks from "Roman Holidays" were visible from parts of Joyce Road and we had a great view from our cabin. (Click on photos to enlarge)

Neighborhood Bears

I started the day by heading to Rome to get gas for mowing the lawns but found a black bear walking/running up Joyce Road near Jim and Mary Koval's. The bear made a left turn up Harley and Barb's driveway where I got this picture before it entered the woods.

The bear was headed toward our farm property so I quickly drove the car to the field behind the barn and waited for the bear. After a couple of minutes I got out of the car and walked towards Harley's house where I meet the bear (at less than 15 yards) in the tall goldenrod. The bear headed south towards Dana Green's and I wasn't able to get another picture of this bear.


I returned to the car and had planned to show Harley the picture of the bear but found a second, smaller bear at Joyce Road near the driveway to the barn. This bear slowly walked up the road as I followed in the car.


The bear headed left and crossed Jan and Steve's driveway as it headed towards Miner's pond.


The bear then walked along the edge of the pond and back on Joyce Road. The bear continued north on the road and then headed for Gerry and Janet's lawn.


The bear walked towards the back of Gerry's lawn ...


and headed for the bird feeders. I shouted at the bear and it then headed for Gordon and Barb's lawn.



I continued to follow the bear with the car as it walked towards Gordon's bird feeder.


I got out of the car and shouted at the bear again as it approached the bird feeder. The bear then ran into the nearby woods.


Once in the woods, the bear stopped and watched me for a while and then walked slowly into the woods.

Pipeline Environmental Evaluation

Steve Finch and Stephen Caruana of Kleinfelder were in the neighborhood today conducting an environmental evaluation of the proposed Chesapeake gas pipeline.

EASTHILL site survey

Greenway Engineering was in the neighborhood today to do the initial survey of the proposed EASTHILL (EAW37) drill site. This survey will be done with a GPS mapping system to create a 3D map of the property for use in creating a well pad layout. Two wooden survey stakes and metal pins were placed along Joyce Road next to our cabin property as reference markers for other surveys done on the EASTHILL drill site.

New Calf

We have been out of the neighborhood for a couple of weeks visiting our sons, Brad in Michigan and Chuck in Iowa. We stopped at Jason's to catch up on the neighborhood news and had a chance to see a new calf shortly after it was born. We noticed one of the cows (Donna) was laying on its side and "dropped" the calf as we started to walk to the field.

Donna was cleaning the calf when we arrived.


After a few minutes the calf took its first steps.

Well Site EAW-37 update

After conducting an environmental evaluation of the Minyon property on Joyce Road, Chesapeake has decided to move the proposed EAW-37 well site south to our property. Jim Irre and Tom Meeks of Greenway Engineering were on our property today marking wetland areas on the property prior to a survey of the proposed well site. The proposed name for this well site is "EASTHILL" ("BEEBE" was taken by the Clark Beebe site). Along with the "EASTHILL" (EAW-37) well site, Chesapeake is also looking at a proposed well site, EAW-40, on our West Hill property. The proposed site name for EAW-40 is "WESTHILL". If both sites are selected we will have well sites "EASTHILL" and "WESTHILL".

After 21 years, Iowans get their pen pal

The Omaha World-Herald newspaper ran the following story of our son Chuck on the front page of the paper today.

Twenty one years ago two sisters, 11 and 15, from Halbur, Iowa were looking for a friend from a far-off land. So the sisters dropped the bottle into the West Nishnabotna River, figuring that it might wind its way to the Missouri River, then the Mississippi River and finally the ocean.

This spring, our son Chuck Beebe of Mineola, Iowa, and a friend spotted a bottle in a pile of debris on his property along the West Nishnabotna river in Iowa. The bottle had only traveled 80 miles in 21 years.

Chuck deciphered what he could of the weathered message, boxed it up and sent it back to Jody (Mescher) Geest and Kelly Mescher. Now, after 21 years, they finally have their pen pal.

Check out the full story at: http://www.omaha.com/article/20100625/NEWS01/706259901#after-21-years-iowans-get-their-pen-pal

Turkey Nest

Since we travel back and forth on Joyce Road a lot to our different properties we've been asked several times this spring if we've seen any young turkey poults (chicks). Last Sunday I saw a half dozen hen turkeys in Jason's fields, but no poults. I may have the answer now. The hens are still sitting on their nests.

While I was mowing the small fields behind our house yesterday, I kicked a hen off her nest and missed the nest by inches with the tractor tire. I returned this morning to check on the nest and found the hen had returned. In the following picture, the nest is at the base of the tree on the right and the hen turkey is on the left, just taking off, wings raised.


The following photo shows the nest with 14 eggs in it.

Skunks

Within the past week several skunks have been seen near our barn and cabin. The following photo was taken this evening in the hay field near our barn and a mother skunk with 5 little ones crossed the cabin road a couple of days ago.

EAW-37 Environmental Evaluation

A team from Greenway Engineering was in the neighborhood today conducting an environmental evaluation of Chesapeake's proposed drill site EAW-37.


The Greenway Engineering team (Stephen White on left and Tom Meeks in photo) was checking soil samples and looking for environmental issues, such as wetlands, on the proposed gas well site.

Making Hay

With warm. dry weather, Jason was able to start making hay at our farm property.


So far the weather has been much dryer this year compared to last year.

Feeding Time

We have been doing some work on our barn for the past couple of weeks and have a House Wren family (Troglodytes aedon) nesting in one of the barn supports.


As we worked on the barn both of the parents were contently supplying food to the young birds. If we were working near the nest, the birds would chirp until we moved away from the nest.



Once the food was delivered, the adult was off for another meal.

Claverack Mapping Project

Charlie West (Davey Resource Group) was in the neighborhood gathering data for Claverack's GPS mapping project. This project will map every pole, transformer and related pieces of electrical equipment on Claverack's electric system. For more information on Claverack's GPS mapping project, click here.

EAW-37

Mark Reimers and a team from Chesapeake Energy were in the neighborhood on Monday to look at sites for a new gas well. This is one of the first steps in the well site selection process and additional reviews of the site will follow. The Chesapeake well ID is EAW37 and is located on the Richard Minyon property, on the east side of Joyce Road, across from Gordon and Barb Secor.



Click here to check out a Google Map of other gas well sites in the Rome area.